Arroyo Officials Who Quit — Traitors or Patriots?

MANILA, 10 July 2005 — Were the Cabinet officials who quit their posts on Friday to force President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s resignation heroes or traitors?

As far as Arroyo’s loyalists are concerned, there was nothing honorable with what the 10 officials led by Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima did.

Purisima and his companions called a press conference early on Friday and announced that they were quitting the administration. They then called on Arroyo to make the “supreme sacrifice” and relinquish her position to Vice President Noli de Castro.

They said allegations that Arroyo rigged the May 2004 ballot had eroded her capacity to govern.

The crisis stems from audiotapes, released in June, that the opposition alleges prove that Arroyo connived with an elections official to win the May, 2004 elections.

“The longer the president stays in office under a cloud of doubt and mistrust, and with her style of decision-making, the greater the damage on the economy and the more vulnerable the fragile political situation becomes to extremists seeking to undermine our democratic life. In the end, the poor will suffer the most,” they said in a joint statement.

Arroyo’s most energetic campaigner, Environment Secretary Michael Defensor, said Purisima’s group has a lot of explaining to do to the Filipino people.

Defensor accused them of being part of a “conspiracy” to bring down Arroyo from power.

Rigoberto Tiglao, chief of the Presidential Management Staff, lamented that the group chose to “grandstand” and abandoned their responsibility to govern.

Arroyo’s political adviser Gabriel Claudio said the group could have just quietly left and not make a “political spectacle” out of their resignation.

Representative Miguel Zubiri of Bukidnon province minced no words, accusing the 10 of committing a “treacherous act.”

“They’re the alter egos of the president. They could have left gracefully,” Zubiri said.

Aside from Purisima, the other officials were Education Secretary Florencio Abad, Social Welfare Secretary Dinkly Soliman, Trade Secretary Juan Santos, Budget Secretary Emilia Boncodin, National Anti-Poverty Commission Secretary Imelda Nicolas, Agrarian Reform Secretary Rene Villa, Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process Teresita Quintos-Deles, Internal Revenue Commissioner Guillermo Parayno and Customs Commissioner Alberto Lina.

In a forum yesterday at the Ateneo de Manila University, Quintos-Deles and Soliman said they quit their posts because the president’s credibility has deteriorated beyond repair with the “jueteng” scandal and the controversy involving the taped conversation between Arroyo and an election official.

“Listening to the people not just in Metro Manila but from different parts of the country, (we realized that) her credibility has been deteriorating,” Soliman said, arguing that credibility and leadership are fundamental requirements for the effective management of the country.

In a television interview yesterday, Purisima and Santos said Arroyo has impaired her ability to carry out key but tough economic reforms.

Speaking on the ABS-CBN News Channel, the duo said the imperatives of political survival have led Arroyo to put tough economic reforms on the backburner.

Purisima cited a conversation he had with Arroyo in which he said the president expressed a desire to delay the implementation of the Expanded Value-Added Tax Law, without specifying how that was to be accomplished.

Purisima said it was not true that the group’s move was long-planned and part of a coup attempt.

Santos said that investors were afraid that the president’s political problems had made her incapable of making tough decisions.

Deles cited the president’s lack of sincerity to address the problems confronting her presidency.

Purisima and company were not lacking in admirers, not to mention the opposition partisans as well as Susan Roces, the widow of Fernando Poe Jr., who was allegedly cheated by Arroyo in last year’s election.

Roces cited the officials for having the decency to abandon a rotten presidency and seeking to effect reforms.

Former President Corazon Aquino, together with the influential Makati Business Club, also cited the resignation of the 10 as a sign that it was time for Arroyo to step down.

An unlikely statement of support came from the top American diplomat in the Philippines, who called Purisima and his group “patriots.”

While saying the the US government firmly opposed any effort to unseat Arroyo by extra-constitutional means, including by coup or by “People Power” protests, US Embassy charge d’affaires Joseph Mussomeli said the resigned officials were not “adventurists” as they were described by Arroyo’s allies.

“I know many of those Cabinet members who have resigned now and the ones that I know are all very decent and good people, patriots, who are concerned with the welfare of the Filipino people,” Mussomeli said in a television interview. (With input from Inquirer News Service and agencies)